For one thing, you want to give your employees the right tools for the job. For example, if you’ve got workers that are doing timekeeping for a vast number of others, they need to be enabled to do so expediently, securely, and easily.

It’s not entirely unproductive to use excel sheets, though it may not be entirely ideal—still, there are some options better than others; according to Clockspot.com: “Excel might not be a perfect solution, but, if you’re going to use it, why not make sure you have the best templates at your disposal?” If your employees have good tools, they’re more likely to be successful.

Employee Recognition And Benefits

You also are going to want to openly recognize it when employees do a good job. It’s very hard to work under a quota when successes aren’t seen by all. Too often, employees aren’t recognized for anything except making mistakes. Unless you’re trying to get employees to shirk duties and lazily collect a paycheck, you need to give positive recognition for good work.

This has the benefit of incentivizing the employee being recognized, and other employees who see their peer do well. Look at statistics, find those who are really going above and beyond. Once you’ve found them, make a big deal about it.

Benefits packages are also a great thing to provide employees if they’re affordable. This helps them have a natural reason to stay with your organization beyond incentives and paychecks.

Breaks

You don’t want to expect too much out of your employees, either. The best productivity will come when there are proper breaks. If you have employees working a twelve-hour shift, you want to give them a break every two to four hours, depending on the intensity of their work. Certainly this may differ per occupation.

For example, if there’s a job which includes a lot of driving, over a twelve-hour shift three breaks are a minimum necessity. You want two “fifteens” and one “thirty” for lunch, or for a nap, or whatever an employee needs. It may even be worthwhile to have three thirty-minute breaks over such a shift.

If you’re dealing with employees working hard physical labor, more breaks will be necessary. When breaks don’t occur, employees get burned out, and even if they try to do well, their work is riddled with errors that diminish productivity as cleanup becomes necessary.

A Clear Career Path

Another good tip is to provide employees with a path to career advancement. If there is a very low ceiling, incentivization can have a negative effect, because on a subconscious level, employees believe they’re getting recognized because management knows there’s little else to inspire them.

If you can provide a career path for qualified individuals, using a meritocracy approach to recognize them as they excel, you’re likely to see everybody work for that slot. The more of such positions your company can provide, the more incentive employees have to seek them.

There are many techniques out there to expand employee productivity; some of these will work for your organization, some won’t. So choose the ones which best fit your business, and monitor the results to ensure your changes work.